


Black Beauty

by aidsaf



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, First Meetings, I think?, Might make it two or three chapters, One Shot, Sad with a Happy Ending, Suicide Attempt, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 11:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aidsaf/pseuds/aidsaf
Summary: I knew that there was something particular with him the first time I saw him, something I couldn’t put my finger on. I remember him suddenly breaking into an uncontrolled laughter. I remember his crinkled eyes and his crooked teeth. I remember promising myself that someday it would be me that would make him laugh like that, because in that moment I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone being so effortlessly happy./Nowadays I’m not unsure about the possibility of change, not when the person sitting next to me barely is a shell of the person I used to know. I wondered when he had begun to change and why I hadn’t noticed it earlier.Warning: Mention of suicide.Inspiration taken from Black Beauty - Lana Del Rey.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	1. When I Met Him

I knew that there was something particular with him the first time I saw him, something I couldn’t put my finger on. When he walked into the lecture with an amused expression on his face, talking to someone he’d just met, he seemed completely unbothered by his surroundings. That this was the first day of university, and that the entire lecture hall was filled with strangers, didn’t faze him a bit.As he looked up to search for empty seats, his friend seemed to have said something funny because until this day I remember him suddenly breaking into an uncontrolled laughter. I remember his crinkled eyes and his crooked teeth. I remember promising myself that someday it would be me that would make him laugh like that, because in that moment I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone being so effortlessly happy. This made him so terribly beautiful in my eyes and I felt myself being drawn to him more and more each day, just like a moth is drawn to a flame. He wasn’t that self conscious back then, or maybe I didn’t look closely enough.

The first couple of months went by, and I still hadn’t mustered up the courage to go up to him and say something. I wanted to say something funny, so I finally would be the recipient of that laughter. Although, if I’m being honest with myself I’ve never been neither funny nor charismatic. So at that point I would’ve even settled for a smile. I was desperate for being a point in his sphere since I was utterly convinced that his happiness was somehow contagious, and being happy was another thing I was desperately longing for. Later on I would come to understand that all points on a sphere are at the same distance from the center. Even back then, I should’ve known that I would never be completely satisfied by that, by being just a _point_. I would come to want more. I would come to want to shorten my radius to his center more and more until I reached the core. I always wanted more and maybe that made me selfish.Maybe I should’ve settled with what he was able to share with me. Maybe I should’ve been more easily satisfied. Maybe I should’ve been grateful for just being one of the points in his sphere. Instead, I wanted more, I _yearned_ for more. But back then, my biggest concern was how to approach him.

Every morning he would walk into that same class with one of his friends. At first I thought he found a new stranger to talk with each morning, but I soon realized that they were in fact his friends. Friends that he seemed to enjoy, and that made me envious of him. During my first semester I hadn’t found anyone I genuinely liked being around, so in fear of being completely alone I hanged out with a girl named Angelica. This was only during and in-between classes, because on the weekends she would always take the earliest train back home to her parents - clearly not wanting to spend a single second extra on campus than what was necessary. I didn’t have much to return to, so I stayed on campus during the weekends. I even enjoyed the alone time I got when she was away. It wasn’t that she was mean or necessarily boring, but the problem was that we didn’t have much in common. Every conversation was filled with shallow questions such as ”How are you?” and ”How does your day look like?”, questions we weren’t really interested hearing the answers to.We never mentioned our weekends. Somehow that topic was off-limit in our strange ’friendship’ - if you could even call it that. I don’t think she was fond of me either, but just like me she was afraid of being alone. I think she viewed me as quite cold and pretentious, and I can’t really blame her for that. Her biggest ambition in life was finding a nice husband and have nice children, while working at a nice job that paid enough for them to live in a nice house somewhere in a nice neighborhood. The key word was ’nice’ and I once, accidentally, told her that I would rather die than to live a life that looked like that. I wanted more, as always.

One day during the first semester me and Angelica were invited to a party, and that was the first weekend she didn’t go back to her parents house. University hadn’t been what we had imagined, so being invited to our first party was exhilarating and I somewhere deep inside had a feeling that this party would finally change my life somehow. And it did, in some ways. When we stepped in to someone’s overcrowded dorm kitchen were the party was being held, me and Angelica looked at each other in panic. We didn’t know anyone, we only had each other and just as much as she felt my anxiety, I felt hers. It was the first time I felt close to her. Sometimes I think of her and wonder how she’s doing, and I catch myself really wanting to know the answer. Did she find a nice husband? Did she get what she wished for; the nice kids, the nice job and the nice house in the nice neighbourhood? I really hope so. Maybe I want that too. Or maybe I just wish I wanted that too. A lot would’ve been easier if I did. However, I remember that night getting increasingly better after each drink I anxiously gulped down and sometime later that night, when my teeth had numbed as they always do when I get drunk, Angelica was uncharacteristically dancing on the kitchen table while I was swaying my hips awkwardly below her. Suddenly I became acutely aware of my state of drunkenness and in fear of making a fool of myself I wanted to get myself out of there as quickly as possible. I mouthed ’air’ to Angelica, which she answered with a thumbs up, before heading out the door. It was outside, in the self-made smoking area, that I saw him. It was strange seeing him somewhere else besides our lecture hall, since I couldn’t really imagine him having a life outside of what I was seeing of him. Which was in itself a silly thought, not only because I didn’t see him that much but because he probably had a much more exciting life than I did.

But there he stood, with a cigarette hanging lazily between his lips, listening to his friends talking. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but he moved with a kind of confidence I hadn’t seen in a lot of people. I would later come to wonder if that confidence was actually his or something he was mimicking, something he had seen in others and then tried to perfect until it wouldn’t look forced. I blew on my hands to warm them up while continuing looking at him. I think he noticed that he was being watched, as you normally do when someone is staring at you, because he suddenly mumbled something to his friends and turned his head in my direction. When his eyes landed on me, he looked at me as if he was trying to place me. Like he knew me somehow or recognized me from somewhere. Back then I thought he recognized me from our lectures together, but I would later realize that that wasn’t the case.

He and I, we knew each other from the beginning. We didn’t know _of _each other, but we did know each other, without a doubt. I still don’t know what that really means, but I do know that I know him better than anyone. Maybe even better than he knows himself. Even back then.

As much as I had thought of what I would tell him when getting the chance, it ended up with him approaching me. He took one last drag, threw his cigarette on the ground, and walked towards me.

Sometimes I replay this scene over and over in my head and I wonder if my life would’ve turned out differently if he didn’t come up to me that night. Then I would’ve not experienced his laugh, his shy smiles, his suffering, his cries. I would’ve not experienced his love and his hate.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't.


	2. Coming back home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to warn you before reading this chapter, there are some heavy subjects that are brought up so if you're sensitive to what's mentioned in the tags you might not want to read this. Otherwise, go ahead and let me know what you think! I hope you like it.

I used to wonder if it really was possible for people to change and if it was; when was it possible to notice it? Nowadays I’m not unsure about the possibility of change, not when the person sitting next to me barely is a shell of the person I used to know. I wondered when he had begun to change and why I hadn’t noticed it earlier. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed the weight loss, the reluctance of getting out of bed, the sleepless nights and the smiles that didn’t really reach his eyes as warning signs. Warning signs of not only change, but disappearance. His body was practically crying out for help, but somehow I hadn’t noticed. Or maybe I had, but refused to realize it. There’s a difference between looking and seeing. Yet it didn’t seem to matter, or maybe it was too late, because he was still slowly but surely disappearing before my eyes.

I stole another quick glance at him and my heart clenched. He had lost some more weight since the last time I saw him, and it seemed like he wasn’t getting much sleep. His cheekbones had become more apparent, the bags under his eyes had become darker and he looked paler. How it was possible for a man his size and height to look that fragile I would never understand. They told me that he was getting better, but at this point I don’t really know what better really entails. If this is what ’better’ means I’m not sure that I want it.

He was sitting twisted at the edge of his seat, with his hands in his lap, watching the scenery. It was a beautiful summer day, that kind of day where you could basically smell the warmth the blazing sun was exuding. As we drove across the park you could see people in lighter clothes talking and laughing like they had no worries in the world. No matter where you turned your head you could see people being _effortlessly happy_. It was almost like the world was painted in brighter colors, and I wondered if he saw that as well, if he saw these vibrant colors, the smiles and the laughter. I wondered if the happiness summer brings with it reached him as well or if it all got filtered out by his hazy lenses. I can’t help thinking of a time when I wondered if his effortless happiness was contagious. Now I wonder if my bleakness contaminated him.

I reached out for his hand, careful not to touch the gauze bandages that covered his underarms. He flinched and I tried to not take it to heart, even though I felt like I could break into a million pieces at any moment. I missed him. He was sitting next to me, but I still missed him.

I remember when he first woke up, I had run up to him as I screamed for a nurse. I remember my relief. I was happy for a brief second. Neither the relief nor the happiness lasted long though. When he saw my face he had started crying, without trying to hide his face from me as he usually does. He kept shaking his head frantically, quietly repeating the same sentence over and over again as the tears streamed down his cheeks.

”I’m not supposed to be here,” he’d said.

I wanted to ask him ”What about me? Can’t you stay alive for me at least?” but I was too shocked to open my mouth. I just grabbed his hand in case he would disappear. In my sleep I sometimes hear his desperate cries. Other times I see him looking at me with tears flowing down from his miserable eyes. He always mumbles something in these nightmares, but it’s not until I wake up I hear that same sentence ringing in my head.

”If you kill yourself, you’ll kill me as well,” I whispered to him that night when he was asleep.

When we got home he looked lost, as if he was stepping into someone else’s apartment. I took the bags from his grip and he went straight into the bedroom without saying a word.

During the weeks he had spent at the hospital, I had visited him every chance I got. He didn’t say much during these visits, and in the beginning I hadn’t put much thought behind why he always seemed overly quiet in my presence or why he couldn’t look me in the eyes. As the weeks went by I couldn’t help feeling that he was disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself too. I should’ve saved him earlier. I should’ve known. So his silence was something I easily grew used to, and after a while I felt myself growing quieter too. One day I realized I didn’t have the words to talk to him anymore.

I sat at the dining table, trying to work, but it only ended up with me staring at the closed bedroom door until it opened and he stepped out. He quickly looked at me, his eyes still not meeting mine, before heading to the bathroom. As the door closed I felt my heart starting to hammer inside my chest. I try to take calming breaths but all I can see is_ red, red, red. _I stand up to run after him and when I grab the door handle I see that it’s locked. The thumping in my ear increases and the room is spinning as my fists uncontrollably bangs on the door.

”Open up the door, Ben! Open up _now_!” I hear myself scream.

I hear his footsteps getting closer behind the door, and after what feels like an eternity I hear the sound of the door getting unlocked and then it finally opens. It’s not until I see him that the thumping in my ear disappears and the room stops spinning.

”You can’t close the bathroom door,” I say breathlessly.

”I needed to pee. Do you want to be in the room while I fucking pee too?”

I was more stunned by hearing his voice than I was of his anger, but I found myself nodding.

”I don’t know what you want from me,” he mutters as he turns his back to me to continue what he was doing before.

I couldn’t believe that this was the same man that would look at me as if I had hung the stars in the sky for him. Even back then I told myself that it wouldn’t last long, that he would someday see through me and realize that I was nothing but a fraud that had somehow lured him in. What surprised me though, was the pain I now feel when he has reached that point; that point where he can't even look me in the eyes. I thought that the years of preparation for this moment where he would come to this realization would spare me of this pain.

My eyes don't leave him until he pushes past me and it's when he steps out from the bathroom that I release a breath that I didn’t know I was holding. The last time I had seen him in this same space I had been covered in his still warm blood, screaming hysterically as they pulled him away from me. As I looked around in the bathroom I wondered if the walls remembered. I wondered if there might be drops of his blood that I couldn’t wash away, etched between the tiles. I wondered if the echoes of my screams and cries somehow lives on.

Maybe I should renovate the bathroom.

I follow him to the bedroom and I see him laying on his side on the bed with his back turned away from me, so I sit by his feet. It’s strange, that even in this state, the smell of him is comforting. Having him back home, alive, makes me feel like I won the lottery. I reach out to stroke his ankle and when I feel his warm skin I feel my shoulders relax and my body calm down.

”Can you please talk to me?”

There’s a long pause which makes me think that he might not answer. Maybe he’s asleep. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to me. I take a defeated breath. I tell myself that it might not get better than this. That I should be lucky that he’s in one piece, but I know that that isn’t completely true. There’s a big part of him that’s missing, a big part that might never come back.

”I wish I was doing better,” he says after a while.

I don’t know what to tell him, I just adjust myself on the bed so I’m laying beside him. He turns around and looks at me, and I feel myself tearing up. His eyes twitch, filled with tears too.

”You should leave me, I wouldn’t blame you. Your life would be a lot easier without me.” he says quietly.

”Never,” I immediately answer. ”I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.”

And I really wish that he could. Even though it was his illuminating light that drew me in at the beginning, his darkness that's almost drowning him now is something I also recognize. Because to recognize is to know who someone is and I knew him. I knew _Ben. _I knew him as a part of me and to lose him would be like losing a part of myself. A vital part of myself. The only part of myself that I truly loved.

He shakes his head in answer with a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes, but there's something else looking back at me behind his eyes. Something that makes me warm and hopeful. He gently places his hand on my cheek and leans in to press a soft kiss to my lips. I lean in so my forehead rests against his and stroke away a couple of strands of his dark hair that are covering his face and tuck them behind his ear.

”We’re going to be fine,” I whisper against his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> not sure if i want to make it multiple chapters (edit: lol it seems like it turned into two chapters) and i'm not really sure if this will be up for long or if i'll take it down. but yeah, here's something. let me know what you think!


End file.
